Enterprise Optimization (EO) is "a systematic process of planning, integrating, coordinating and executing all dimensions of enterprise activities for best-possible mission-focused results". [1] It is a sub-field of management science. The purpose of EO is to answer the basic question "What do we need to do to earn best-possible profits under continually changing market conditions?" As a practical field of management Enterprise Optimization is both a science and an art. [2]
Management science (MS) is the broad interdisciplinary study of problem solving and decision making in human organizations, with strong links to management, economics, business, engineering, management consulting, and other fields. It uses various scientific research-based principles, strategies, and analytical methods including mathematical modeling, statistics and numerical algorithms to improve an organization's ability to enact rational and accurate management decisions by arriving at optimal or near optimal solutions to complex decision problems. Management science helps businesses to achieve goals using various scientific methods.
Linear programming (LP), originally developed and commonly used for optimal allocation of scarce resources, is the primary mathematical tool of Enterprise Optimization.
Linear programming is a method to achieve the best outcome in a mathematical model whose requirements are represented by linear relationships. Linear programming is a special case of mathematical programming.
Enterprise Optimization defines 5 types of resources: Capital, Procurement options, Sales opportunities, Production capabilities, and Information. [3] EO can be thought of as the optimization of the procurement and the use of these resources. [4]
Procurement is the process of finding and agreeing to terms, and acquiring goods, services, or works from an external source, often via a tendering or competitive bidding process.
Opportunity Values (OVs) are a by-product of Linear programming. Positive OVs show how much bottom-line profit gain will come with each constraint relief. For controllable variables with negative OVs, this value shows how much any profit-forfeiting activities are costing. In the field of Operations research Opportunity values are called Shadow prices or sometimes Marginal values.
Operations research (OR) is a discipline that deals with the application of advanced analytical methods to help make better decisions. Further, the term operational analysis is used in the British military as an intrinsic part of capability development, management and assurance. In particular, operational analysis forms part of the Combined Operational Effectiveness and Investment Appraisals, which support British defense capability acquisition decision-making.
A shadow price is commonly referred to as a monetary value assigned to currently unknowable or difficult-to-calculate costs. It is based on the willingness to pay principle - in the absence of market prices, the most accurate measure of the value of a good or service is what people are willing to give up in order to get it. Shadow pricing is often calculated on certain assumptions and premises. As a result, it is subjective and somewhat imprecise and inaccurate. The origin of these costs is typically due to an externalization of costs or an unwillingness to recalculate a system to account for marginal production. For example, consider a firm that already has a factory full of equipment and staff. They might estimate the shadow price for a few more units of production as simply the cost of the overtime. In this manner, some goods and services have near zero shadow prices, for example information goods. Less formally, a shadow price can be thought of as the cost of decisions made at the margin without consideration for the total cost.
Field of opportunities (sometimes also called Profit Gap) is another concept of Enterprise Optimization. Field of opportunities is defined as the distance between the best-possible level of enterprise performance and the current performance. [5]
The first known application of Linear Programming for the purposes of enterprise optimization was a computerized LP system for an Oregon forest products company in 1967. The term "Enterprise Optimization" is attributed to Eugene L, Bryan, PhD in 1970.
Enterprise Optimization has been applied in the forest [6] , plywood, and sawmill industries since 1970s. It has also been applied in the food , steel , and other manufacturing industries.
Risk management is the identification, evaluation, and prioritization of risks followed by coordinated and economical application of resources to minimize, monitor, and control the probability or impact of unfortunate events or to maximize the realization of opportunities.
In commerce, supply chain management (SCM), the management of the flow of goods and services, involves the movement and storage of raw materials, of work-in-process inventory, and of finished goods from point of origin to point of consumption. Interconnected, interrelated or interlinked networks, channels and node businesses combine in the provision of products and services required by end customers in a supply chain. Supply-chain management has been defined as the "design, planning, execution, control, and monitoring of supply-chain activities with the objective of creating net value, building a competitive infrastructure, leveraging worldwide logistics, synchronizing supply with demand and measuring performance globally." SCM practice draws heavily from the areas of industrial engineering, systems engineering, operations management, logistics, procurement, information technology, and marketing and strives for an integrated approach. Marketing channels play an important role in supply-chain management. Current research in supply-chain management is concerned with topics related to sustainability and risk management, among others. Some suggest that the “people dimension” of SCM, ethical issues, internal integration, transparency/visibility, and human capital/talent management are topics that have, so far, been underrepresented on the research agenda.
Mathematical optimization or mathematical programming is the selection of a best element from some set of available alternatives. Optimization problems of sorts arise in all quantitative disciplines from computer science and engineering to operations research and economics, and the development of solution methods has been of interest in mathematics for centuries.
Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics is the management of the flow of things between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet requirements of customers or corporations. The resources managed in logistics may include tangible goods such as materials, equipment, and supplies, as well as food and other consumable items. The logistics of physical items usually involves the integration of information flow, materials handling, production, packaging, inventory, transportation, warehousing, and often security.
In business and finance, supply chain is a system of organizations, people, activities, information, and resources involved in moving a product or service from supplier to customer. Supply chain activities involve the transformation of natural resources, raw materials, and components into a finished product that is delivered to the end customer. In sophisticated supply chain systems, used products may re-enter the supply chain at any point where residual value is recyclable. Supply chains link value chains.
Marketing management is the organizational discipline which focuses on the practical application of marketing orientation, techniques and methods inside enterprises and organizations and on the management of a firm's marketing resources and activities.
A value chain is a set of activities that a firm operating in a specific industry performs in order to deliver a valuable product for the market. The concept comes through business management and was first described by Michael Porter in his 1985 best-seller, Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance.
The idea of the value chain is based on the process view of organizations, the idea of seeing a manufacturing organization as a system, made up of subsystems each with inputs, transformation processes and outputs. Inputs, transformation processes, and outputs involve the acquisition and consumption of resources – money, labour, materials, equipment, buildings, land, administration and management. How value chain activities are carried out determines costs and affects profits.
In mathematics, nonlinear programming (NLP) is the process of solving an optimization problem where some of the constraints or the objective function are nonlinear. An optimization problem is one of calculation of the extrema of an objective function over a set of unknown real variables and conditional to the satisfaction of a system of equalities and inequalities, collectively termed constraints. It is the sub-field of mathematical optimization that deals with problems that are not linear.
Project Portfolio Management (PPM) is the centralized management of the processes, methods, and technologies used by project managers and project management offices (PMOs) to analyze and collectively manage current or proposed projects based on numerous key characteristics. The objectives of PPM are to determine the optimal resource mix for delivery and to schedule activities to best achieve an organization’s operational and financial goals, while honouring constraints imposed by customers, strategic objectives, or external real-world factors. The International standard defines the framework of the Project Portfolio Management
For the application of engineering economics in the practice of civil engineering see Engineering economics.
Revenue management is the application of disciplined analytics that predict consumer behaviour at the micro-market levels and optimize product availability and price to maximize revenue growth. The primary aim of revenue management is selling the right product to the right customer at the right time for the right price and with the right pack. The essence of this discipline is in understanding customers' perception of product value and accurately aligning product prices, placement and availability with each customer segment.
International standards in the ISO/IEC 19770 family of standards for IT asset management (ITAM) address both the processes and technology for managing software assets and related IT assets. Broadly speaking, the standard family belongs to the set of Software Asset Management standards and is integrated with other Management System Standards.
Pricing science is the application of social and business science methods to the problem of setting prices. Methods include economic modeling, statistics, econometrics, mathematical programming. This discipline had its origins in the development of yield management in the airline industry in the 1980s, and has since spread to many other sectors and pricing contexts, including yield management in other travel industry sectors, media, retail, manufacturing and distribution.
The Gurobi Optimizer is a commercial optimization solver for linear programming (LP), quadratic programming (QP), quadratically constrained programming (QCP), mixed integer linear programming (MILP), mixed-integer quadratic programming (MIQP), and mixed-integer quadratically constrained programming (MIQCP).
Complexity management is a business methodology that deals with the analysis and optimization of complexity in enterprises. Effects of complexity pertain to all business processes along the value chain and hence complexity management requires a holistic approach. Effective complexity management is based on four pillars: a sound strategy alignment with the overall company strategy, transparency over all costs and values of complexity, an approach which identifies the optimization benefits, related measures and management of the trade-offs between the total value chain functions, and finally ensurement of the sustainable infrastructure such as IT tools, incentives and processes.
Media management is seen as a business administration discipline that identifies and describes strategic and operational phenomena and problems in the leadership of media enterprises. Media management contains the functions strategic management, procurement management, production management, organizational management and marketing of media enterprises.
Ecopreneurship is a term coined to represent the process of principles of entrepreneurship being applied to create businesses that solve environmental problems or operate sustainably. The term began to be widely used in the 1990s, and it is otherwise referred to as "environmental entrepreneurship." In the book Merging Economic and Environmental Concerns Through Ecopreneurship, written by Gwyn Schuyler in 1998, ecopreneurs are defined as follows:
"Ecopreneurs are entrepreneurs whose business efforts are not only driven by profit, but also by a concern for the environment. Ecopreneurship, also known as environmental entrepreneurship and eco-capitalism, is becoming more widespread as a new market-based approach to identifying opportunities for improving environmental quality and capitalizing upon them in the private sector for profit. "